The present invention relates to apparatuses for wet heat treating textile products such as cloths and yarns continuously in order to subject the textile products to such treatment as pretreatment including desizing, scouring and bleaching, and dyeing effectively.
In subjecting a textile product to such treatment as pretreatment and dyeing commercially, it has usually been done to wet heat treat the textile product soaked with a treating solution such as a pretreating solution and a dye solution in a steamer at a temperature below 100.degree. C. in batches discontinuously. The process has however such drawbacks that a large heat energy is consumed, the degree of dyeing differs batch to batch, and it needs a long while uneconomically until the treatment is completed.
The present inventors have disclosed the use of a high pressure steamer with which pretreatment and dyeing of a long textile product can be done continuously and speedily in a second level by wet heat treating a textile product soaked with a treating solution therein, and this apparatus is under practical application with a favorable result. However, in this high pressure steamer, since the textile product is soaked with a treating solution only one time in wet heat treating the resultant textile product, the application of the treating solution is frequently insufficient and not uniform, resulting in an unsatisfactory result. Particularly, more than one piece of a cloth can not be treated in piling the pieces en bloc.
In such a high pressure steamer, the wet heat treated textile product can be prewashed effectively in the steamer body by utilizing the effect that a textile product immediately after wet heat treated is in a swollen state to be easily washed. However, the interior of a steamer body is maintained with a wet heat usually as high as about 150.degree. C. and washing water to be supplied from outside of the steamer body is usually at the ordinary temperature of about 20.degree. C., having a tolerably large temperature difference therebetween. Therefore, in supplying washing water to the steamer body for prewashing the textile product, the temperature of the interior of the steamer body is lowered to condense the steam therein, and thus the wet heat in the steamer body is decreased, preventing a satisfactory wet heat treatment and consuming a large heat energy.